A daily Moroccan newspaper is accusing the design of CMN/GMMN with its concept of parallel runways and taxiway to be at the origin of at least 5 incidents including one serious involving an Air France Airbus in 2011.

Airports and civil aviation authorities in Morocco are considering plans to minimise risks at Casablanca. In fact runways 35L and 35R seem to be confusing to pilots, and on August 8, 2011, an A319 of Air France landed visually on the Right when it was cleared to land on the Left... being used for departures ! Before that, in 2003 a RAM arrival also landed on the wrong assigned runway, in 2009 a Jetairfly was about to do so, and in 2010 a Turkish and RAM did it as well !

Special marking was added to differentiate both runways, and visual procedures were banned. No incident reported since then but civil aviation authorities are still waiting for more from ONDA which is the board in charge of managing airports in Morocco.

Any pilot here could explain a little more about that misleading runways in Casablanca ?!

Tons of airports have parallel runways and taxiways. You don't see this kind of problem at LAX which has four runways, both pairs are which are in close proximity to each other. I have a hard time seeing how the layout in itself is the problem.

I think this sounds like a storm in a teacup. Banning visual procedures? Isn't that overkill? They changed the markings and there haven't been any incidents since then. Ok then...

Of course parallel runways exist elsewhere and in a more complicated layout, and do not forget that it is the newspaper (not even an aviation magazine or an article written by an aviation specialist) which is backing the fault to the airport layout. Such incidents happen, but they are not welcome ! But the decision to ban visual is senseless...

But in the US, at congested airspaces, and in airports with triple parallel runways... they continue to use visual procedures regularly unlike in CDG or LHR for example. It's a relief for both ATC and pilots

Quoting TS-IOR (Thread starter):Special marking was added to differentiate both runways, and visual procedures were banned. No incident reported since then but civil aviation authorities are still waiting for more from ONDA which is the board in charge of managing airports in Morocco.

I really don't understand what could be the problem with the airport design / layout.

There is about 340M separation between the two runways. That is almost identical to the separation at CDG. The layout of CMN is almost identical to the layout of either side of CDG.

The runway pairs at LAX are separated by 170M on the north and 190M on the south side.

I suspect the real issue is the controllers in Morocco usage of English, and the pilots having difficulty in understanding how the controllers identify the runways.

I've been into CMN more than a few times, and visual conditions are very often challenging, though technically good enough for a visual approach. Keep in mind it's often hazy and dusty in this area of the world, with a lot of humidity driving in from the Atlantic meeting the dust from the desert. The colours of the landscape blends perfectly with the runways, and there's nothing in the way of visual clues to tell you if you're approaching the left or right one (e.g. being left or right of the tower, a terminal or hangar).

With all that in mind I can see the case for placing a "no-visual" restriction on the approaches. Of course there's no "excuse" for a poorly executed visual approach, but frankly it's easier to shoot a Canarsie to JFK than a circling to CMN. So perhaps the armchair experts, armed with nothing but a Google Map and a Canon, should consider the validity of their inputs.

From receips and radials over straight pipes to big fans - been there, done that, got the hearing defects to prove

Quoting B777LRF (Reply 8):
I've been into CMN more than a few times, and visual conditions are very often challenging, though technically good enough for a visual approach. Keep in mind it's often hazy and dusty in this area of the world, with a lot of humidity driving in from the Atlantic meeting the dust from the desert. The colours of the landscape blends perfectly with the runways, and there's nothing in the way of visual clues to tell you if you're approaching the left or right one (e.g. being left or right of the tower, a terminal or hangar).

With all that in mind I can see the case for placing a "no-visual" restriction on the approaches. Of course there's no "excuse" for a poorly executed visual approach, but frankly it's easier to shoot a Canarsie to JFK than a circling to CMN. So perhaps the armchair experts, armed with nothing but a Google Map and a Canon, should consider the validity of their inputs.

Good input. And I guess that is what was missing from the thread, someone who has actually flown to the airport. As you say we armchair experts are sitting in armchairs and don't often have all the info.

"There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots."

Excellent reply. That's what i was looking for, and knowing that kind of hazy and dusty weather (much less in Tunisia, but could be compared to the one in DXB for example) i was betting on such a reason to ban visuals.